Whether you’re just starting to watch or fully caught-up, you can officially binge all of Outcast Season 1 on Cinemax and MaxGo.com. If you’re looking for viewing buddies and further insight into the dark corners of each episode, you’ve come to the right place. Discover what creator Robert Kirkman and series star Patrick Fugit have to say about the finer details of the series in this episode-by-episode guide. (Spoilers follow.)
EPISODE 1:
A Darkness Surrounds Him
“Pilot episodes are tough,” Robert Kirkman says. “You never know if what you have on the page is going to survive on the screen.” The most gratifying part of filming the first episode, then? “Watching on the monitors and seeing it all come to life.”
“It’s extreme, and it’s fucked up, but I don’t think that it’s gratuitous in any way.”
—Patrick Fugit
For Patrick Fugit, the best part was shooting the exorcism scenes with Gabriel Bateman (Joshua, the kid from the opening cockroach scene). Fugit says, “When you’re able to immerse yourself in the role and in the scene, and the other actors are doing the same, it’s really when everything flows and synergizes.” Recognizing the violent nature of the confrontation between his character, Kyle Barnes, and Joshua, Fugit observes, “There was a lot of violence, but the violence comes from an emotionally driven place. It’s extreme, and it’s fucked up, but I don’t think that it’s gratuitous in any way.”
EPISODE 2:
(I Remember) When She Loved Me
Delving into Kyle’s tormented relationship with his mother, Sarah Barnes, Kirkman explains, “To a certain extent, Sarah Barnes is nothing more than a memory to Kyle. In the flashbacks, you see this amazing relationship that they had, but you have to recognize how young Kyle is in those scenes and how he hasn’t been around her since then.” Hinting at revelations to come, he adds, “You know there are so many unsaid things that will come into play later in the series, things that Kyle just doesn’t know about.”
Fugit revealed his personal take on the ruptured relationship between Kyle and his mother, saying, “I think Kyle has been harbouring a lot of resentment towards his mother for a long time, because he wasn’t able to explain what happened. As the season goes on, he starts to realize that it was not her actions and that it was not her fault, and that she was actually trying to protect him.” Walking a similar line to Kirkman, Fugit teases, “He discovers more at the end of Season 1, and Season 2 explains even more about Sarah Barnes.”
EPISODE 3:
All Alone Now
Not everything is what it seems in Rome, West Virginia. According to Kirkman, even the nature of possession and exorcism is turned on its head, and “All Alone Now” is the episode to start fitting the pieces together. He says, “This episode is the first time you really can start digging into the mythology, because seeing how one thing works here and doesn’t works there and what the differences are gets down to the core of what’s going on.” More specifically, Kirkman recommends comparing Kyle’s attempted exorcism of Blake with his successful removal of the demon in Joshua. As Kirkman lays out, “The biggest difference between Blake and Joshua’s possession is that Blake’s possession was unchecked. Because the demon inside of Blake has been there much longer, it’s a much different situation.” Fugit has insight into the differences as well: “Blake has been possessed for quite a lot longer than Joshua, so whatever is inside of him made itself at home and has more control.”
EPISODE 4:
A Wrath Unseen
Sidney (played by Brent Spiner) makes an official entrance into the series in “A Wrath Unseen.” And while his motives remain unclear, as Kirkman puts it, “Rev. Anderson has been doing what he does for a very long time. It’s not until Kyle Barnes starts helping him that Sidney decides to come to town.”
“Rev. Anderson has been doing what he does for a very long time. And it is not until Kyle Barnes starts helping him that Sidney decides to come to town.”
—Robert Kirkman
Patrick Fugit acknowledges that getting a read on Sindey can be tricky: “Sidney comes in as a dark-horse mystery man.” All the same, Fugit adds, “Rev. Anderson knows that something is picking up in intensity and scale. And he knows that his position will be threatened soon and that this guy is bad news.”
EPISODE 5:
The Road Before Us
With the focus turning to Kyle’s wife, Allison, in “The Road Before Us,” Fugit observes, “Allison is one of the rare opportunities we get to watch somebody after she has been exorcised.” Adding, “We don’t really know what the lingering effects of possession are. Watching Allison, we’re exploring a lot of that.”
For Kirkman, the other focus was on Allison’s internal turmoil over the dissolution of her and Kyle’s relationship: “Allison is struggling with a tremendous amount of misinformation. She thinks that her husband flipped out one day and beat her and her daughter up. She has a huge amount of turmoil, because she still loves Kyle, but at the same time she’s terrified of him. It’s an extremely complicated relationship that we’ll be digging into quite a bit as we move forward.”
EPISODE 6:
From the Shadows It Watches
It’s fair to say that Rev. Anderson experiences something of an identity crisis in “From the Shadows It Watches.” As Fugit puts it, “His identity centers around being able to complete these missions that he’s created for himself to fight the holy war. So the fact that that’s all fading away, where does he stand now?” Kirkman points out, “If you go back to even the first episode, you’ll see that the Rev. Anderson has a lot of confidence. This episode is when he starts to realize, holy shit, I don’t think I know what I’m doing.”
Kirkman also draws out a distinction between Kyle’s and Rev. Anderson’s personal circumstances. Touching upon the Rev.’s loss of his family, Kirkman says, “Kyle lost his family over circumstances that weren’t in his control. Anderson is a guy who has made a choice.” He adds, “Anderson’s given up a lot in order to achieve these goals that he thinks are extremely important. And now he’s realizing that he may have made a huge mistake.” …And then Sidney attacks.
EPISODE 7:
The Damage Done
Though Sidney’s attack happens at the end of “From the Shadows It Watches,” it’s in “The Damage Done” that Rev. Anderson kicks into high gear to respond to the assault. For Kirkman, this “first real altercation” sets up an adversarial relationship that will continue for seasons to come: “It’s this great confrontation between two forces who are going to be butting heads quite a bit going forward. We kick things off with a bang, and it’s going to set a lot of things in motion that will come into play throughout this season and into the next season.”
“It’s this great confrontation between two forces who are going to be butting heads quite a bit going forward.”
—Robert Kirkman
Fugit hints that the reasons behind Sidney’s attack should not be taken as confirmation that the Rev. was right all along, saying “Sidney is an awesome character in that he chooses to appear as one thing but has different motives and is something completely different and something more dark and disturbing than we could ever have imagined.”
EPISODE 8:
What Lurks Within
At long last, Kyle sits down with Sidney (in a jail cell-not the most ideal of circumstance) and asks the questions we’ve all been dying to have answered-questions Kirkman is well aware of: “Who is this guy? What is this thing inside of him? How did it change his life and change his personality?”
With the discovery that Sidney’s pre-possessed self was a monster in its own right, Kirkman provides further insight into the nature of possession on Outcast: “We use the term ‘merged.’ This is a merged entity.” In the conversation between Sidney and Kyle, Kirkman says, “There’s a lot of hints to the deeper mythology at work in this series.” Fugit adds, “Sidney’s a man with a high capacity for logic, and that’s a terrifying thing when you’re as dark and dangerous as he is.”
EPISODE 9:
Close To Home
The cards are stacked against Kyle in “Close to Home.” As Fugit puts it, “Kyle is seeing the realization of his fears over the last year: Allison remembering the truth of what happened.” She was the one to attack their daughter while possessed, and not knowing anything about possession, Allison assumes there’s something wrong with her. Fugit explains, “She’s realized that up until now, Kyle has been hiding everything and that it is actually her fault. She thinks, ‘How can I be capable of this?’” So for Kyle, “He sees that he’s too late and that the damage has already been done, and Allison is not going to listen to him when he tries to explain what happened.”
The bad news doesn’t let up: Kyle arrives home to discover that Megan has been possessed. According to Kirkman, “This is a big one, because this is the first time that it really hits close to home again, since Kyle’s mother, since his wife.”
EPISODE 10:
This Little Light
In the finale episode of Season 1, the characters of Outcast come to a violent reckoning. As Fugit observes, “They have to make the right decisions now. And they are not in a great decision-making place. So they make bad decisions, and those decisions have consequences.” His advice? “Be ready to take that ride and watch them suffer the consequences.”
“If there is this big gap after you watch this show where you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I just can’t wait for Season 2,’ go back and watch the series again.”
—Robert Kirkman
Looking at Season 1 as a whole, Kirkman says, “Honestly? The finale episode is where you’re given a lot of information that will change your understanding of the first season.” He advises, “If there is this big gap after you watch this show where you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I just can’t wait for Season 2,’ go back and watch the series again. Start at Episode 1, listen to what Joshua says, listen to what Blake says, pay attention to what Sidney is doing, really examine Mildred and her interactions with Sidney; there’s a lot hidden in there.”